The following is an excerpt from my book that explains some of the thinking behind The Nine Innovation Roles:

“Too often we treat people as commodities that are interchangeable and maintain the same characteristics and aptitudes. Of course, we know that people are not interchangeable, yet we continually pretend that they are anyway — to make life simpler for our reptile brain to comprehend. Deep down we know that people have different passions, skills, and potential, but even when it comes to innovation, we expect everybody to have good ideas.

I’m of the opinion that all people are creative, in their own way. That is not to say that all people are creative in the sense that every single person is good at creating lots of really great ideas, nor do they have to be. I believe instead that everyone has a dominant innovation role at which they excel, and that when properly identified and channeled, the organization stands to maximize its innovation capacity. I believe that all people excel at one of nine innovation roles, and that when organizations put the right people in the right innovation roles, that your innovation speed and capacity will increase.”

The Nine Innovation Roles:

Revolutionary

Conscript

Connector

Artist

Customer Champion

Troubleshooter

Judge

Magic Maker

Evangelist

At the request of many of the thousands of people who have read the book, I have created The Nine Innovation Roles Group Diagnostic Workshop to help organizations explore their innovation team dynamics and what it takes to make your innovation efforts more successful.

Because of my belief in the power of The Nine Innovation Roles Group Diagnostic Workshop, and the value it has delivered for the companies I work with, that I have decided to set The Nine Innovation Roles FREE for those organizations that can’t afford to hire me come conduct an insightful innovation keynote and/or interactive workshop.

Below you’ll find all of the tools that you need to conduct a Nine Innovation Roles Group Diagnostic Workshop or team meeting inside your organization to help you identify why your innovation efforts are failing or how your innovation teams could be more successful in the future.

Some people think I’m crazy to help people not hire me, but because of my collaborative and people-centric approach to innovation I would like to give everyone five free gifts:

Free Gift #1 – The Nine Innovation Roles themselves

1. Revolutionary

The Revolutionary is the person who is always eager to change things, to shake them up, and to share his or her opinion. These people tend to have a lot of great ideas and are not shy about sharing them. They are likely to contribute 80 to 90 percent of your ideas in open scenarios.

2. Conscript

The Conscript has a lot of great ideas but doesn’t willingly share them, either because such people don’t know anyone is looking for ideas, don’t know how to express their ideas, prefer to keep their head down and execute, or all three.

3. Connector

The Connector does just that. These people hear a Conscript say something interesting and put him together with a Revolutionary; The Connector listens to the Artist and knows exactly where to find the Troubleshooter that his idea needs.

4. Artist

The Artist doesn’t always come up with great ideas, but artists are really good at making them better.

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5. Customer Champion

The Customer Champion may live on the edge of the organization. Not only does he have constant contact with the customer, but he also understands their needs, is familiar with their actions and behaviors, and is as close as you can get to interviewing a real customer about a nascent idea.

6. Troubleshooter

Every great idea has at least one or two major roadblocks to overcome before the idea is ready to be judged or before its magic can be made. This is where the Troubleshooter comes in. Troubleshooters love tough problems and often have the deep knowledge or expertise to help solve them.

7. Judge

The Judge is really good at determining what can be made profitably and what will be successful in the marketplace.

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8. Magic Maker

The Magic Makers take an idea and make it real. These are the people who can picture how something is going to be made and line up the right resources to make it happen.

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9. Evangelist

The Evangelists know how to educate people on what the idea is and help them understand it. Evangelists are great people to help build support for an idea internally, and also to help educate customers on its value.

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Free Gift #2 – Downloadable Nine Innovation Roles presentation
(Please Note: I’m sharing this for internal use only, service providers will need to procure a license/certification to use it for commercial purposes)

This presentation is designed to introduce The Nine Innovation Roles framework to your team meeting or internal workshop audience. In addition to sharing definitions of each of The Nine Innovation Roles in a presentation suitable for projection, I’m happy to provide a series of questions that you can use to guide group interaction – ideally with the Nine Innovation Roles cards (Free Gift #4).

You can use this worksheet to have your team evaluate themselves and just gather the self-evaluations to see which roles are represented and which are missing (usual the most important piece of data), or alternatively to have everyone evaluate every other team member as well to provide a kind of 360-degree type feedback to each individual (i.e. You think you’re a Revolutionary but everyone else thinks you’re an Artist).

To make my Nine Innovation Roles framework accessible to as many people as possible inside organizations all around the world to explore and improve innovation team dynamics and success, I am happy to announce that I have now made the print-ready files for the cards available here for FREE download – https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArDSy1eOTpubiS4-qF8alk9Bgl– – and you can either work with the vendor I use – adMagic – or work with a local printer in your part of the world.

Free Gift #5 – Nine Innovation Roles video
(Please Note: I’m sharing this for internal use only, service providers will need to procure a license/certification to use it for commercial purposes)

This video is designed to help you introduce The Nine Innovation Roles framework to your team meeting or internal workshop audience. In addition to sharing definitions of each of The Nine Innovation Roles suitable for projection, it also provides a series of questions that you can use to guide group interaction – ideally with the Nine Innovation Roles cards (Free Gift #4) – and your own personal messages and examples to get people into the mindset that innovation is everyone’s job and that everyone can contribute to the overall innovation efforts of the organization.

Conclusion

I’m extremely proud to offer you the choice of either hiring me to work with you to enhance the success of your innovation teams, or to use these FREE tools to enable you to strengthen your collaborative innovation efforts and explore The Nine Innovation Roles in a group setting on your own.

"I help organizations increase their organizational agility and accelerate their speed of innovation and organizational change.

If you're looking to create a culture of continuous change, tackle some of your innovation barriers, train your employees to be more innovative change agents, or to build a more profitable, more social business -- let's talk."